Chapter XIFuture Plans and Current OperationsJune 1942

During the course of his conversations with Molotov at the end of May
the President explained, first to General Marshall and Admiral King and
then to the Prime Minister, that Iris purpose in declaring his trope
and expectation of opening a second front in 1942 was to reassure the
Soviet Government.1
The declaration did indeed contain an implied
assurance of American independence in dealing with the Soviet Union,
since it was quite different from the noncommittal declaration that the
British Government independently had made to Molotov in London. The
British had stated:

We are making preparations for a landing on the Continent in August
or September 1942. . . . Clearly, however, it would not further either
the Russian cause or that of the Allies as a whole if, for the sake of
action at any price, we embarked on sortie operation which ended in
disaster and gave the enemy an opportunity for glorification at our discomfiture. It
is impossible to say in advance whether the situation
will be such as to make this operation feasible when the time comes.
We can therefore give no promise in the
matter. . . .2

The more encouraging words of the President, however they might be
read as a clue to his intentions, did not cancel the words of the
British Government, which had the more force since planning for the
operation was centered in London and since British troops would bear the
brunt of the operation for some time. Molotov was openly skeptical and
asked what answers he should "take back to London and Moscow on
the general question that has been raised'" The President could
only answer that he was looking forward to an agreement with the
British, and that

. . . Mr. Molotov could say in London that, after all, the British
were even now in personal consultation with our staff officers on questions of
landing craft, food, etc.. We expected to establish a
second front. General Arnold would arrive next day (Tuesday,

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June 2d) from London, and with him Lord Mountbatten, Marshal Portal,
and General Little, with whom it was
planned to arrive at an agreement on the creation of a second
front.3

The President's notion of a cross-Channel operation in 1942 was very
much like that he had given his military chiefs earlier--a great air
offensive over northwestern Europe that should be accompanied by
landings on a scale appropriate to the circumstances. He explained his,
idea to the Prime Minister:

After discussion with the Staffs, I believe that the German air forces
cannot be destroyed unless they have been forced to take the air by
preliminary or temporary actions by ground forces. If we can start this
phase early in August we can produce one of the following results:

1. Divert German air forces from the Russian front and attempt to destroy them.

2. If such air forces are not moved to the west, we can increase our
operations with ground forces and determine on the establishment of
permanent positions as our objective.4

The President's plan rested on the assumptions that the RAF, with
American reinforcements, would be so powerful and control of the air so
decisive that Germany would have to divert air forces from the Eastern
Front in order to prevent Allied forces from establishing a beachhead or
to dislodge them once they had established one. But even on these
assumptions the chance of a strategic success was directly in proportion
to the risk of tactical failure--the stronger the German reaction, the
more probable the result that Allied troops would once again have to be
evacuated in the face of superior German forces, as earlier from Norway,
Dunkerque, and Greece.

The Revival of GYMNAST

Whether or not the President was prepared to run such a risk, it was
becoming quite plain that the British Government was not on this
occasion prepared to do so. The British Government, in the statement
delivered to Molotov, had already declared itself opposed to undertaking
"for the sake of action at any price" an operation "which
ended in disaster and gave the enemy an opportunity for glorification at
our discomfiture." The opposition of the British Government was
reinforced, if not produced, by the hope and expectation of diverting
the President's interest in a second front from a cross-Channel
operation to some other operation more in conformity with British strategy.

The visit of Lord Louis Mountbatten to Washington (to which the
President alluded in his final conversation with Molotov) was the
opening of the British campaign to achieve this objective. On 28 May,
while Molotov was on his way to Washington, the Prime Minister had sent
ahead a report of the talks in London. The gist of the report was that
the British Government had given no commitment to undertake an
operation, but had simply discussed the current state of plans and
preparations, though holding out the possibility of more definite
statements after the talks in Washington were over. In the same report
the Prime Minister had also notified the President that he would soon
send

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Mountbatten to talk over difficulties that had arisen in planning for
cross-Channel operations and also to present the idea of an operation in
northern Norway (JUPITER). To gain a
foothold in northern Norway would serve the
valuable purpose of securing the northern route for sending supplies
to the Soviet Union. It went without saying that it would also serve. to
redeem the British failure in Norway, which had been the occasion of
Churchill's rise to power in 1940. Besides this operation, Churchill
also alluded to his earlier plea for all operation in North
Africa--"We must never let GYMNAST pass from our
minds."5

Coming to Washington early in June, Mountbatten presented to the
President and Hopkins the British case against trying to gain a foothold
across the English Channel in 1942 (SLEDGEHAMMER). The principal
point in the British case was that given the number of landing craft
available, the operation must be so
limited that Germany (which then had all estimated twenty-five divisions in France)
would not have to withdraw ground forces from the
Russian front to deal with it. The President suggested postponing the
operation until later in the fall, so as to provide more landing craft,
American troops, and materiel. The postponement
would carry with it the disadvantage that
there would be less time to seize a port. Mountbatten pointed out that,
in order to support the expedition through the winter, it would be
necessary to hold a port, perhaps Cherbourg, since it was out of the
question to supply troops over the beaches in winter.

British misgivings about SLEDGEHAMMER inevitably raised the question
of the feasibility of ROUNDUP,
the operation projected for 1943. If it would not
be sound to launch SLEDGEHAMMER even as a desperate reaction to the
imminent collapse of Soviet resistance, then the possibility of such a
collapse might serve as a basis to argue
against, rather than for, BOLERO. The idea evidently
occurred to the President, for he remarked (as quoted by Mountbatten)
that he "did not wish to send a
million soldiers to England and find, possibly, that a complete collapse
of Russia had made a frontal attack oil France impossible." He then
expressed the closely related proposition that it might be wise to
divert perhaps six American divisions (the
number due to be sent to the British Isles in the summer and early fall)
to the Middle East or to operations in French North Africa. He also
owned that he had been much struck with the Prime Minister's
admonition not to forget
GYMNAST.6

A fey days after Mountbatten's conversation
with the President, Marshall had his staff prepare for submission to
the President a summary of the most recent studies of the Army
planners on GYMNAST. The earlier plans (for
SUPER-GYMNAST) has provided
for the use of the American force in conjunction
with a British force of about 90,000, including three divisions, and had
contemplated landings at Algiers as well as near Casablanca. The June
studies envisaged

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the use of only American forces and an invasion to be supplied
only through the Atlantic ports of French Morocco, principally
Casablanca. The use of American troops was expected to conciliate French
opinion and save shipping; the use of the Atlantic ports, to minimize
losses of both shipping and the naval escort committed to support the
operation. The June studies assumed full French co-operation, Spanish
neutrality, and the availability of British shipping assigned to the
Middle East run. They estimated tire American force at 220,000,
including six divisions and twenty-four squadrons of planes, as
compared with the force of about 150,000, including four divisions and
the Eighth Air Force, which the earlier American plans had allotted to
SUPER-GYMNAST.7

General Marshall advised against undertaking
the operation. he mentioned the reasons why the operation itself was
risky--that it would gain momentum slowly, and
would for some time hang on uncertain political decisions. He also drew
attention to the danger of "thinning out" naval escort to meet
new commitments. But these objections, however serious in themselves, were incidental to his main
objection, which he expounded at length, that a North African operation
would be an untimely, ineffectual departure from
BOLERO.8

Marshall and his staff had good reason to be concerned over the
possibility of a reversion to GYMNAST. On
17 June the President took tip the question
with his military, advisers, in anticipation of the arrival of the Prime
Minister and his staff in the United States. Secretary Stimson, who
shared the belief of Marshall and his staff, was no less concerned and he
wrote a long memorandum of his own to the President--his "brief in defense of
BOLERO."9

On 19 June, the day on which the Secretary
submitted his views to the President, the Prime Minister and his staff
arrived in the 'United States to take tip the problems discussed by the
President and Mountbatten against the background of the already critical
situation in Libya.10
The Prime Minister went to Hyde Park to go over the ground with the President and Hopkins.
The British Chiefs of Staff went directly to Washington to confer with
the American Chiefs of Staff.

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The staff conversations in Washington began oil a note of
agreement--agreement to wait and see before making new plans. The British
and American chiefs alike had under them field and fleet commanders whom
they could not provide forehandedly with adequate means to react to
enemy moves, whether strong or weak. Over them were their respective
heads of government, inclined to minimize the dangers of leaving field
and fleet operations so dependent on decisions in the capitals and the
arrival of reinforcements sent hurriedly and belatedly from home. As
professional officers, the Chiefs of Staff were uncomfortably aware how
quickly military situations could change and how important it was to
have uncommitted reserves in the field and
at home. In this respect they were more cautious than the President and
the Prime Minister.

Of the many contingencies for which allowance had to be made,
the greatest was then, as before, a decisive turn
in the German offensive in Russia. The key
to the War Department's entire theory of operations
in 1942 was the contention that Great Britain and the United State must
be prepared to react to a rapid change in
the situation oil the Eastern front. The forces committed to
SLEDGEHAMMER constituted in effect a strategic reserve for that purpose.
The need for such a reserve was borne out by the latest British
intelligence estimate, transmitted from London the week before, on the
"possible course of [the] Russian Campaign and its
implications." This estimate included the statement

Margin between success or failure very narrow
and it may be touch and go, which adversary collapses
first. If Germans realize they cannot avoid further winter campaign in
Russia and faced with threat of Anglo-American invasion in the West, collapse
may, as in 1918, ensue with
startling rapidity.11

General Eisenhower welcomed the British
estimate, which brought into relief the very point on which rested the
case for a rapid concentration of forces in the British Isles the strong
possibility of a quick shift in the situation on the Eastern Front. Eisenhower
commented: "Time for us to do something--whatever we
can!" He suggested to Col. John R. Deane that General
Marshall should consider sending the estimate to the President, for the
sake of the statement it contained of the favorable and unfavorable
factors in the campaign--Soviet morale,
numbers, and production as against the superior German position, armor,
and command, even though the estimate itself was perhaps "too
rosy," as the British Chiefs of Staffs had been inclined to
believe.12

The British Chiefs of Staff, in view of the uncertainty of the war on
the Eastern Front, agreed with the American Chiefs that American and
British plans should be left contingent on the issue of the summer's
operations.. In the opening meeting in Washington, they declared that in
the consideration of plans for the rest of
1942 "the crux of the matter was the degree of reliance
we could place on the Russian front holding." On this point they
themselves suspended judgment, saying:

The position was hard to assess and. while General Anders [Lt. Gen.
Wladislaw L. Anders, Commander in Chief.
Polish Army in the Middle East] felt that if the Germans could exert
on the Russian front this summer three-quarters of the effort they had achieved

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in 1941 the Russians would crack. he doubted if the Germans could
produce this degree of effort No preparations for any large attack had
been reported and the Russians showing, both at Sevastopol and in the
Kharkov area, was encouraging.

The British Chiefs gave little encouragement to hopes of launching
operations in 1942, except for raids, across the
English Channel. But they saw a mood chance of establishing forces on
the Continent in 1943 so long as the Red Army held its own. They held,
moreover, that it would be wise in any event to go ahead with BOLERO
until September 1942. By that time they expected
it to be possible to make a reliable estimate of the situation on the
Eastern Front. If it should then seem likely that the Red Army would hold
its own during the fall and winter, it would be sound to concentrate
on preparations for an invasion in 1943. If not, American reinforcements
that had by then been shipped to the British Isles would be needed for
the defense of the British Isles. It would then be necessary to prepare
for an alternative operation, perhaps in
North Africa. But until then the BOLERO plan "held good on either
hypothesis" as to the outcome of events on
the Eastern Front.13

The American representatives did not formally abandon the position
Marshall had previously taken. Eisenhower's comment was of particular interest
in view of his view assignment in London. He expressed a reluctance to discontinue plans
for SLEDGEHAMMER, asserting that if the collapse
of Soviet resistance seemed imminent, "there was a possibility at
least of securing a bridgehead and holding it as Malta or Tobruk had been held,"
and that the attempt,
if supported by the full power of air forces in the British Isles, would
compel the Germans to withdraw air forces from the Eastern Front.
King said he was "entirely opposed" to operations in North
Africa in 1942. He was against opening a new front "with all the
increase in overheads and escort and transportation problems involved therein."
The situation in North Africa at the time "did not augur well" for an
operation in 1942. Finally, the operation would require the withdrawal of naval
forces from the Pacific. thus increasing the risks already taken there,
"which had given him considerable
anxiety.14

There was small chance of agreement with the British staff on the
subject of SLEDGEHAMMER. But Sir Charles Little, representing the
British Navy, said that he "felt sure" Sir Dudley Pound would
agree with Admiral King in opposing GYMNAST, since the naval situation
in the Atlantic "was already difficult enough without taking on a
large new commitment."15
Indeed, the British staff
appeared ready to concur in the other objections raised, against GYMNAST
that it would cut reinforcements to the Middle East without compensating
effects, Would probably have little effect on the Eastern Front, and
would slow down BOLERO.16
The willingness of the British staff to
agree that GYMNAST was unsound and that BOLERO
should be continued, created broad ground for agreement with the American Chiefs of Staff.
Marshall at once moved over to this ground:

GENERAL MARSHALL said that large scale operations on the Continent in 1943

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would clearly not be possible unless all efforts were concentrated
now, on their preparation. If we changed our plan now, and opened up
another front, we should probably achieve nothing. If we went ahead, we
should at least ensure the safety of the United Kingdom.
happened in Russia. and any change of plan could by made in
about September when we know what the
situation on the Eastern front was going to be.

As a token of his willingness to come to agreement on this basis, he
at once agreed that there was "no reason" why the United
States should not send an armored division to the Middle East to help
relieve the critical situation
there.17

The main points of agreement the CCS set down in the form of a paper
for submission to the President and the
Prime Minister. Their report advised
against any considerable operation in the Atlantic theater
in 1942 unless it became necessary or "an exceptionally favorable
opportunity presented itself." They advised further study of possible
operations in Western Europe given such a contingency--against Brest,
the Channel Islands, or northern Norway. As to the comparative merits of
these operations, they concluded:

In our view each would be accompanied by certain hazards that would be
justified only by reasons that where compelling in nature. Any of these
plans, however, would be preferable to
undertaking GYMNAST, especially from the standpoint of dispersing base
organization, lines of sea communication,
and air strength.18

The CCS did not present these conclusions formally to the President and the
Prime Minister.19
For them to have
done so would have been presumptuous and useless, for the conversations that
had been going on meanwhile at Hyde Park had taken a very different turn
from the staff talks in Washington. The Prime Minister opened with a
dramatic appeal to the President's known desire for "action"
in 1942. He declared that the British were
making "arrangements" for a
landing of six or eight divisions across the Channel in September, as
they had agreed to do. But, he went on, "no responsible British
military authority" had so far been able to make a plan for
September 1942 "which had any chance of success unless the Germans
become utterly demoralized of which there is no likelihood."
He asked whether the American staffs had a plan:

If so, what is it? What forces would be employed? At what points would
they strike? What landing craft and shipping are available?
Who is the officer prepared to command the
enterprise? What British forces and assistance are required?

If, he maintained, a plan could be found that offered "a
reasonable prospect of Success," he
would be glad to agree to it:

. . . HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT will certainly, welcome it and will
share to the full with their American comrades the risks and sacrifices.
This remains our settled and agreed policy.

But if a plan could not be found that offered
a good chance of establishing a permanent
lodgment on the Continent, the British Government was opposed to undertaking
the operation at all, on the grounds that it "would not help the
Russians whatever their plight, would
compromise and expose to NAZI vengeance the French population involved
and would gravely delay the main operation in 1943." The

--239--

Prime Minister then put the argument for GYMNAST thus:

But in case no plan can be made in which any responsible authority has
good confidence. and consequently no engagement on a substantial
scale in France is possible in September
1942, what else are we going to do? Can we afford to stand idle in the
Atlantic Theatre during the whole of 1942? Ought we not to be preparing
within the general structure of BOLERO some other operation by which we
may gain positions of advantage and also directly or indirectly to take
some of the weight off Russia? It is in this setting and on this
background that the operation GYMNAST
should be studied.20

The President responded as readily to the approach of the Prime
Minister as the American staff in Washington had to the approach of the
British Chiefs of Staff. On the next day Hopkins sent to Marshall and
King, along with the Prime Minister's appeal,
the instructions that they should prepare to discuss with the President
the following possibilities:

On the assumption that the Russian Army will be hard pressed and
retreating in July: that the German forces are in August
(1) dangerously threatening Leningrad and Moscow
and (2) have trade a serious break through on the southern front
threatening the Caucasus;

On the above assumptions, at what point or points can (a) American
ground forces prior to September 15, 1942, plan and execute an attack on
German forces or in German controlled areas which can compel the withdrawal
of German forces from the Russian front: (b) British forces in the same area
or in a different area aid
in the same objective?21

These questions of the President, like those of the Prime Minister,
brought into sharp relief the one point on which the British and
American staffs had disagreed--the grounds for trying to establish a
bridgehead on the Continent in 1942. The War Department staff drafted
studies on both sets of questions, in the
form of memoranda, for submission to the President.22

To the Prime Minister's assertion that his staff, after detailed
study, had advanced no plan acceptable to the British Government,
the War Department staff proposed to reply, not by offering different
operational plans, but by appealing to the original agreement,
the very purpose of which was, so far as operations in 1942 were
concerned, to get ready to do what could be done, in case something must
be done. The War Department had not even
made a detailed operational plan, it having been agreed in April that
the detailed plans would be made in London. But the War Department was
still ready to recommend an operation in the situation and for the
purpose originally described by Marshall--to do what was possible
to meet a sudden turn of events, for better or worse, on the Continent. According

--240--

CHURCHILL AT PARACHUTE TROOP DEMONSTRATION,Fort Jackson, S.C., during his visit to Washington, June 1942.
Left to right: General Marshall; Field Marshal Sir John Dill; Prime Minister Churchill;
Secretary Stimson; Maj. Gen. R.L. Eichelberger, Commanding
General, U.S. I Corps; General Sir Alan Brooke.

to current studies, the American forces that could be employed in
such a contingency would be three (possibly
four) infantry divisions, one armored
division, one regiment of parachute troops, five heavy bomber groups,
five fighter groups, and two transport groups. Marshall had proposed
landing in the Pas-de-Calais area, but the staff was also willing to
consider other possible operations that had not been thoroughly
explored--against the Channel Islands or the Cotentin peninsula or (with
sufficient support from carrier-borne planes) against Brittany or even
farther south along the west coast of France. On landing craft, the
staff adopted the figures given in a recently approved combined study.
The craft available would have a capacity of about 20,000 men,
about 1,000 heavy vehicles, and something over 300 light vehicles. But
according to the War Department, several expedients might be used to
land more men--to reduce the transport
assigned to assault divisions and to use transport planes and makeshift
with small craft not specifically adapted to the purpose.
The War Department held that, by cutting into the transport requirements
of the assault troops and using smaller and lighter vehicles, it might
be possible to land the combat elements of two divisions, and proposed
further investigation of the other expedients. The War Department was
not disposed to make an issue of command, declaring

--241--

only that the United States would name a qualified American
officer or accept a qualified British
officer. Finally, the staff repeated the estimate Marshall had
originally presented--that the British could supply "at least 5
divisions and the bulk of its air force without undue hazard to the
United Kingdom.23

The Army staff adduced three arguments in support of SLEDGEHAMMER.
First, the staff pointed out that the original agreement explicitly
envisaged a desperate operation against odds. Its aim would be to secure
a bridgehead on the Continent, but like any operation against odds, it
might of course "lead to disaster." It would not be in accord
with the original agreement nor would it be in accord with the demands
of the situation predicated therein to make
a strong likelihood of success a condition of launching the operation.

Second, the staff pointed out that the "power of the immense
British Air Force in the U.K. alone, in support of operations within
its effective range. would more than counter balance many shortages in
other means." The staff therefore asked:

If disaster is to be expected in an operation supported by the entire
British Air Force based in the U.K. and a large increment from the
United States Army Air Force, what chance can any other operation
without such support have?

Third, the staff reasserted the closely related
proposition that the preliminary air offensive against the Continent,
together with large-scale raids across the Channel, were more likely
than attacks at any other point "to directly or indirectly take
some of the weight off Russia." The German High Command could not
afford to disregard even the threat to
establish a front on the Continent. A "continuous air offensive"
would "without a doubt bring on the major air battle over Western
Europe." This battle "in itself would probably be the greatest
single aid we could possibly give to Russia.

In conjunction with this last point the staff examined the Prime
Minister's question of "standing idle" in 1942 and his proposal to
reconsider GYMNAST. The staff offered the proposition that to mount
a continuous air offensive and launch large-scale raids against the
Continent would not be to "stand idle." The previously expressed views of the President
indicated that he might find this argument acceptable. Finally, the
staff came to GYMNAST itself:

The operation GYMNAST has been studied and restudied. Its advantages
and disadvantages are well known. One of the greatest
disadvantages is the fact that the operation,
even though successful, may [not] and probably will not result in
removing one German soldier, tank, or plane
from the Russian front.24

The staff dwelt on this last point in drafting
a reply to the questions posed by the President and Hopkins. The staff
pointed out that the War Department had considered
the obvious alternative courses before ever proposing the concentration
of American forces for a cross-Channel
operation, and reasserted that only such an operation, carried out
boldly and inventively by British

--242--

and American forces together, could cause withdrawal of German
forces from the Eastern Front before 15 September:

British and American forces can execute an attack prior to September
15, 1942, somewhere in the area between
Holland inclusive and Spain inclusive, of sufficient power possibly
to threaten German security and thus cause them to divert forces from
the Russian Front. The success attained in such operations
will be based on many factors, such as:

Acceptance of sacrifice and danger in securing
a lodgment and in conducting vigorous exploitation.

Intelligent and wholehearted adaptation of expedients and
improvisations throughout all phases of the operation.

The staff explicitly recognized that the BOLERO plan entailed a change
in British strategy:

Prior to the acceptance of the BOLERO Plan. British deployments and
operations apparently were undertaken
primarily with a view to maintaining the integrity of the British
Empire. The BOLERO Plan insures coordination
and cooperation within the United Nations
and envisages the creation of conditions that will facilitate continuity
of offensive effort to bring about the decisive defeat of the enemy.

The staff concluded:

a. If the Germans have a strangle hold upon the Russian Army they will
not be diverted from their purpose by pin prick operations.
The farther any such pin prick operation is removed from the Nazi
citadel, the less will be its effect.

b. Modern war requires that successful employment
of ground forces must be supported by overwhelming air power. The most
effective air support can be accomplished
by the operations contemplated in the BOLERO Plan.

c. Accepting calculated risks and based on sound strategic
considerations, the Modified BOLERO Plan promises the best chance of diverting
German forces from the Eastern Front in 1942.25

On 21 June the Prime Minister and General
Marshall presented their cases to the President at a long, heated
meeting at the White House, also attended by Hopkins, General Sir Alan
Brooke, and Maj. Gen. Sir Hastings Ismay.26
After the meeting was
over Ismay drafted for consideration by the American chiefs a new
version of the CCS report on offensive operations for 1942-43, a version
in keeping with the Prime Minister's stated
views on the subject. The new version began as follows:

1. Plans and preparations for operations on the continent of Europe in
1943 on as large a scale as possible are to be pushed forward with all
speed and energy. It is, however, essential that the United States and
Great Britain should be prepared to act offensively in 1942.

2. Operations in Western Europe in 1942 would, if successful, yield
greater political and strategic gains than operations in any other
theatre. Plans and preparations for the operations
in this theatre are to be pressed forward
with all possible speed, energy and ingenuity.
The most resolute efforts must be made to overcome the obvious dangers
and difficulties of the enterprise. If a sound and sensible plan can be
contrived, we should not hesitate to give effect to it. If on the other
hand detailed examination shows that despite all efforts, success is
improbable, we must be ready with an alternative.27

These conclusions nullified the agreement reached on 20 June by the
CCS to discourage any new operation across
the Atlantic in 1942. The effect on that agreement was

--243--

still more evident in the next conclusion, proposing an alternative to
SLEDGEHAMMER, which General Ismay
formulated as follows:

3. Provided that political conditions are favorable, the best
alternative in 1942 is Operation GYMNAST.
Accordingly the plans for this operation should be completed in all details
as soon as possible. The forces to be employed in GYMNAST would in the
main be found from BOLERO units which had not yet left the United
States.28

This conclusion was quite different from the agreement of the CCS,
who, having listed other operations besides SLEDGEHAMMER that might be
launched from the British Isles, had concluded that, risky as they were,
any of them "would be preferable to undertaking
GYMNAST."

The War Department staff at once seized upon the statement. Working
from Marshall's notes of the meeting, the
senior Army planner (General Handy) and the U.S. Secretary of the
Combined Chiefs of Stall (General Smith) drafted a different version
which they believed to be "more in line" with Marshall's ideas
"as to the points on which we should agree." In their version,
GYMNAST was simply one alternative, along with operations on the Iberian
Peninsula (which General Ismay had mentioned) or against northern Norway
(a project known to be a favorite of the Prime Minister).29
They realized
that they themselves would "not be able to reconcile the two drafts
with the British." 30
They left the task to Marshall, who succeeded, in working out a compromise
with the British, which was circulated on 24 June.
In this, the final draft, Ismay's version of the
controversial passage was modified to begin: "The possibilities of
operation GYMNAST will be explored carefully
and conscientiously, and plans will be completed in all details as soon
as possible."31

American Commitments to the Middle East

The Prime Minister's effort to reinstate GYMNAST as an Allied plan
coincided with the development of a very dangerous military
situation in Libya. At the end of May the Afrika Korps had taken the offensive.

--244--

At first the British staff had been rather optimistic. But in
the interval between Admiral Mountbatten's
visit of reconnaissance in Washington and
the arrival of the Prime Minister and his Chiefs of Staff, operations
took a turn for the worse. Under heavy attack the British Eighth Army
gave way along the line Ain el Gazala and, after a battle on 12 June in
which it lost a great many tanks (estimated to have been 300) , began
retreating eastward. During the confusion of the retreat came the
unexpected news of the fall of Tobruk (21 June), which had a strong
effect in both Washington and London, for Tobruk had held during the
previous German offensive (April 1941) and
its loss gave General field Marshall Erwin Rommel a good port through which to support his advance
eastward.32

The Establishment of USAFIME

The opening success of the German campaign in the Libyan Desert
virtually assured the ratification of some such agreement as the
American and British air chiefs had worked out in London
providing for an American air force in the Middle Fast, and made the
establishment of an Army command in Cairo
urgent.33
On 16 June the War Department issued directives to establish
regional commands in Africa and the Middle East.34
The War Department set up two commands--U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East (USAFIME) under
Maj. Gen. Russell L. Maxwell, with headquarters at Cairo, and U.S. Army
Forces in Central Africa (USAFICA) under Brig. Gen. Shepler
W. Fitzgerald, with headquarters at Accra (British West Africa).
USAFICA was set up to supervise the construction and defense of airfields
across Africa, a mission of importance to, but distinct from, the defense
of both India and the Middle East. The jurisdiction of USAFIME covered
most U.S. Army installations within the territory formerly assigned to
the North African and Iranian missions 35

The establishment of USAFIME pointed to a new policy, the scope of
which was as yet very uncertain. General Maxwell was at last promised
service units (about 6,000 men), and Services of Supply proceeded to
activate the required units (over and above the 1942 Troop Basis) for
shipment beginning in October.36
But the new headquarters would acquire much broader responsibilities than those of a
service command if American air units
should arrive in Egypt. The choice of Maxwell was dictated
by expediency and uncertainty, to maintain the continuity of American
British relations in Cairo, and the War Department
made this quite clear with the first message that informed him of the
establishment of the new command. He was to be

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the "initial" commander, but "in case an appreciable
number of combat troops" were sent out later on, he would
"probably" be replaced.37

Air Reinforcements

The defense of Egypt depended, first of all, on gaining time to
re-equip, reorganize, and reinforce the Eighth Army. It was of decisive
importance to slow clown the arrival of
German replacements and reserves of men, equipment, and supplies, and
therefore of the greatest urgency to
reinforce the British Middle Fast air force, in particular with bomber.
The principal objectives were the North African ports (including the
newly won port of Tobruk) at which Axis replacements and reserves
arriving from Europe must be unloaded and assembled before
beginning the trip eastward across Libya.

The first step taken by the United States to help iii the emergency
was to hold in Egypt a special group of B-24's assigned to China, under
Col. Harry A. Halverson.38
This group (HALPRO) had been ordered to
stop en route to undertake one dangerous special mission, the bombing of
oil fields and storage areas at Ploesti, Rumania.39
On 11-12 June, twelve or thirteen planes of the group had carried out
this mission--the first U.S. air mission flown against any strategic
target in Europe--with inconclusive results.40
At British request, seven others on 15 June, flew a mission
against Italian Fleet units in the Mediterranean.41
Colonel Halverson reported that if he were to fly one more mission he would not have
enough planes left from the twenty-four originally assigned to him to
proceed with his mission to the Far East.42
His group was nevertheless ordered to remain in Egypt until further notice to fly any
mission in support of the British for which
heavy bombers were suitable.43

To reinforce the HALPRO group the President
decided to borrow for use in the Mediterranean the bomber echelon of the
Tenth Air Force in India. 'this small force, under General Brereton,
had finally, late in May, been transferred from British command

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to General Stilwell.44
Stilwell had hardly had a chance to
put it to use when the order arrived from Washington on 23 June to send
Brereton to Cairo with his heavy bombers (twenty-four, ten of which were
then in shape to go).45
Brereton was to return his force to Stilwell's
command when he had completed his mission of assisting
the British in the Middle East. On his arrival in Cairo he took command
of a new overseas headquarters, U.S. Army Air Forces in the Middle
East.46

A third emergency measure taken in Washington during June, at the
direction of the President, was to begin moving from the United States a
squadron of light bombers (A-29's) assigned to the Tenth Air Force and
to order it held at Khartoum in the Sudan. The President did not intend
these planes to be committed in the :Middle East except in case of
extreme necessity, and then only at his
direction.47
The Chinese Government first learned of the decision
only after it was made and at once expressed strong resentment, at
first understanding that the United States was diverting these planes to the Middle
East, as it had already diverted the HALPRO group and the 9th Bomber
Squadron of the Tenth Air Force.48
The President quickly explained his reasons and corrected the misunderstanding,
and held to his decision.49
It was not until the end of July, when
the squadron was assembled at Khartoum, that he released it to proceed
to China.50
These actions did not undo the effect of the diversions
of air units and planes. The diversions
themselves, and the fact that they were made--as the earlier diversion of
the Tenth Air Force in April had been made--without
even consulting the Chinese Government,
precipitated a new, still more violent outbreak of resentment in
Chungking, and the issuance of an ultimatum--the "three

--247--

demands" of Chiang Kai-shek for American
support--that became the starting point of a new set of negotiations
with China.51

The United States had meanwhile undertaken
a much more ambitious project to reinforce the Middle East air force,
under the compromise that General Arnold had brought back front London
early in the month.52
This compromise was still un-ratified,
and far from clarified, when the British Chiefs arrived in Washington.
The Army planner then sent the other members of the CPS a schedule
listing eight groups for the Middle East, with a view to an early
settlement. Arnold at the same time directed
that three groups should be prepared for shipment early in July--a heavy
bomber group, it medium bomber group, and, if possible, a pursuit group.
But the details of the final settlement were still so uncertain that the
operations staff thought it "inadvisable" to pass on the
information to Maxwell in Cairo.53

On 21 June General Arnold, Admiral Towers, and Air Vice Marshal
Slessor (representing Air Marshal Portal) signed art agreement covering
the long controverted issues. Under the Arnold-Slessor-Towers (or Arnold-Portal-Towers)
agreement the United States would send to the Middle East six (not eight) air group some
group of heavy bombers, two of medium
bombers, and three fighter groups.54

Even before concurring in the proposed agreement, Marshall and King
went ahead to direct the movement of the three groups that Arnold had
ordered prepared--a heavy bomber group, a medium bomber group, and a
fighter group. The 57th Fighter Group (P-40's) was ordered to begin
loading at once on the USS Ranger, loaned
by the Navy to transport the planes and crews to Takoradi (Gold Coast), whence the, would fly to
Cairo. A group of B-24's the 98th Bombardment Group. Heavy already partly assembled
in Florida and a group of B-25's (the 12th Bombardment Group, Medium)
then in California were scheduled to fly
to Cairo by the South Atlantic ferry route, the first squadrons to
depart as soon as they were ready.55
Ground echelons and equipment were
to leave early in July by the SS Pasteur.56
Finally, on 25 June, Marshall and King, having initiated action to move the three first
groups to the diddle East, tentatively and informally concurred in the
Arnold- Portal-Towers agreement, so as to settle the matter before the
Prime Minister's return to London, which was urgent in view of the
criticism awaiting him in Parliament on the conduct of the war in Libya.
They concurred, "subject of course to such modifications as may be
made necessary, by unforeseen changes in the shipping

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situation or in aircraft production."57
A week later the CCS tentatively approved the agreement, subject to the same
qualification.58

Ground Reinforcements

The possibility of sending large American ground forces to the Middle
East came tip during the June conferences as one of the points the
President had mentioned to Mountbatten on his visit to
Washington.59
In the British summary of the President's remarks the point appeared as follows:

The possibility of economizing shipping by dispatching substantial U.S. forces
to the Middle East rather than by reinforcing the Middle
East by British forces from the United Kingdom.60

The President's suggestion w as pertinent to the immediate situation,
since the British deployment program
then provided for sending, three divisions (one of them an armored division), to
the Middle East by the early part of August, and the British Chiefs of
Staff were considering the movement of two more divisions "if the
situation deteriorated."61
The President's suggestion was also pertinent in that it offered an alternative
to GYMNAST and SLEDGEHAMMER, and thus a way out
of the impasse created by the disagreement of the Prime Minister and General Marshall.

On the basis of the initial rapprochement
with the British Chiefs, General Marshall
made a modest opening bid toward a settlement. At the second meeting
with the British Chiefs (20 June), Marshall announced
that he "had been examining the possibility of sending a U.S.
armored division,
desert trained, to the East, and saw do reason why this should not be
done. The division was available."62
Following the conference at the White House on 21 June, the Combined Military Transportation
Committee was directed to consider the implications, for shipping, of
moving the 2d Armored Division to the Middle East.63T
he committee met on 23 June and drew up alternative schedules, variously affecting
BOLERO.64
The War Department was at the same time considering what
units would have to go with the 2d Armored Division if it were sent to
the Middle East as part of a task force, under the command of Maj. Gen.
George S. Patton, Jr.65

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But the White House meeting of 21 June, which put the planners to work
on the project, also showed that the Prime Minister was not to be
diverted from his hope of invading French
North Africa. As a result, the CCS did not act on Marshall's offer,
though they did not entirely eliminate it from possible
consideration.66
Then the CCS met on the morning of 25 June to consider
the findings of the committee on deployment
to the Middle East, Marshall, though he did not withdraw his offer, made
an additional proposal. The new proposal was one he could offer and the
British Chiefs of Staff could accept by itself, noncommittally,
while awaiting a determination of the question of operations in 1942,
from which the disposition of the 2d Armored Division could not be
dissociated. Marshall proposed that the
Army send to Egypt 300 M4 tanks and 100 self-propelled 105-mm. guns and
150 men specially qualified to work with tanks and self-propelled
artillery (as well as 4,000 Air Corps personnel, under the three group
deployment program for July). This movement would involve no direct
conflict with BOLERO schedules. He also offered to make available, in
the United Kingdom, instructors and equipment from the 1st Armored
Division to train British troops in the use of the American equipment
sent to the Middle East.67
On the same day the President and the Prime Minister approved this proposal
and the War Department went to work to carry it out.68

The Crisis in Egypt

The American response to the crisis in the Middle East, prompt though
it was, affected operations during the
summer mainly as a factor in the plans of the British
commands in London and Cairo and only incidentally as a factor in the
balance of forces on the Egyptian front. During July the actual striking
force at General Brereton's disposal in Egypt--the depleted HALPRO group,
with the reinforcements from India--was strong enough only to send out a
few planes at a time.69 These

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flights continued the task already begun by the HALPRO group,
attacking shipping and port installations to prevent supplies and reinforcements
from reaching the Afrika Korps.

It was several weeks before the planes sent out from the United States
could begin operating in Egypt. The USS Ranger, with the 57th
Fighter Group, sailed on 1 July; the first
echelons of the bomber groups left in mid-July, and at the same time the
USS Pasteur sailed with the first troops and
equipment.70
The first planes arrived in Egypt at the end of the
month.71
Ground personnel and equipment began to arrive during the first part of
August.72

The ground force equipment took even longer to arrive. The guns and
tanks were at first to be shipped in two seatrains but were loaded
instead in three fast ships, which sailed early in July. One ship was
sunk; its cargo of tanks and guns was replaced and loaded on
another.73
The ships arrived in Egypt early in
September.74

These movements of American troops and equipment were begun in a state
of extreme uncertainty over the outcome of the battle in the desert. In
the last week of June, following the return of the Prime Minister and
his party to England, the British Eighth Army continued to fall back
until it finally established its main line of defense at El Alamein,
only seventy-five miles west of Alexandria. On 29 June Maj. Gen.
George V. Strong, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, believed that it would
be a matter of a week or less before the "final military decision"
and warned that the "probability of a British catastrophe must now
be counted upon." He therefore recommended that no more planes be
sent to the Middle East and that all supplies at sea be stopped at
Massaua (Eritrea) "until the military situation
in Egypt becomes clarified." 75

On the following day Marshall asked his staff for an estimate of the
situation to give to the President. General Strong was again
pessimistic. The chief of operations, Brig. Gen. Thomas T. Hand, was
somewhat less so. His more hopeful view was
shared by General Smith who, as American secretary to the CCS, was most
closely in touch with current British views. They talked over the
situation by telephone while Handy was working on the estimate to be
sent to the President, comparing notes as follows:

--251--

Smith: I believe I'd cross off that statement on the bottom about
there being a strong possibility of their
being in Cairo in 96 hours. I'm inclined to doubt that. They have
scrapped [sic] up over 300 tanks.

Handy: I said two weeks. he quoted me for that. He quoted George
Strong for 96 hours. That statement we had in there Strong dictated.
He asked me in his office and I told him 2 weeks because I don't feel
it's gone at all.

Smith: These Johnnies up here feel there's a darn good chance.

Handy: Rommel's, pretty well strung out. That depression [Qattara
depression] must be a helluva place to do anything in. He's got Tobruk
now and that's a good harbor they've never had before. Still another fellow
had it before he did.

Smith: Apparently there's not much left there. They got everything out
of Matruh. Their idea is not to get pinned down anywhere and they're
wise there.76

The President had indicated his own anxiety in his request for a
report on the situation, in which he asked for a detailed estimate of
what would happen and what might be done in case the Germans gained
control of the Nile delta within the next ten days.77
Marshall's reply
restated the long held opinion of the War
Department that the loss of the Nile delta would lead to the loss of the
whole Middle East. On the basis of the President's assumption--which fell
between the estimates of G-2 and of the operations staff--Marshall
reported that Rommel, after doing his best to destroy the retreating
British forces, would move to take Cyprus, thence into Syria, and
finally across into Mesopotamia and down to the head of the Persian
Gulf. The British Eighth Army (after blocking the Suez Canal, a point about which the President
was particularly interested) would probably have to retreat southward
along the Nile into the Sudan. To stop the Germans in Syria and assure
the resistance of Turkey would require much larger reinforcements than
could be sent in such a short time. Marshall advised against trying to
hold the Middle Fast once Egypt was lost, saying that "a major
effort in this region would bleed us white." He believed there was
nothing more to do at the moment but wait and see what General
Auchinleck, who had taken command in Egypt,
would do.78

The great concern of the President and his advisers was reflected both
in detailed inquiries as to the British plans and in extensive
correspondence with the American commanders in Cairo on their own plans
for evacuating American units and destroying
American equipment left behind.79
But there was apparently no move
on the part either of the War Department or of

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the President to suspend the shipments scheduled for the Middle East.
In fact, early in July the President, at the instance of the Prime
Minister, asked Stalin to release to the
British forty A-20's at Basra, part of a month's consignment (of 100 A-20's)
for the Soviet Union. The Soviet Government readily
acceded.80
Marshall acted with equal promptness in response to a request for
ammunition. Early in Jul Sir John Dill reported that the Middle Fast
Command was low on 37-mm. ammunition and would be dangerously short
for a period of several days after the middle of the month, until
the expected arrival of a large shipment. He asked Marshall to have the Air Transport
Command (ATC) change its schedule of shipments to the Middle East so as
to get 7,000 rounds of 37-mm. ammunition to Egypt in time to meet the
shortage.81
Colonel Deane, Secretary of the General Staff, directed this change on behalf
of Marshall.82
The ammunition arrived in time to help meet the
shortage.83

The President did take very seriously one expression of American
doubt, and distrust--that of Col. Bonner F. Fellers, U.S. military attaché
in Cairo. Fellers held a low opinion of British leadership and
slight hopes of British prospects in the war in the desert, but his
estimates, although they doubtless contributed
to the cautious advice of the War Department G-2 (to whom he reported),
had led him to recommend exactly the opposite
course.84
During the spring Fellers repeatedly urged that the United States should intervene by
recruiting, equipping, and taking command of an international corps in the
Middle East.85\
He had also recommended sending a large American

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bomber force to the Middle East.86
At the end of May he had
urged, in addition to equipping six divisions lit the Middle East,
transferring the Tenth Air Force from India and sending from the
United States two armored and two infantry divisions and an air force
of three hundred heavy bomber. After the fall of Tobruk he repeated
his plea.87
But by then he had come to dwell more oil the immediate need
for planes, and, in particular, heavy bombers.88

The recommendations made by Fellers may have influenced (and may even
have been influenced by) the discussions carried on and the actions
taken in Washington during the June crisis, but neither the President
nor the War Department adopted his extreme view of the need for
uninvited, unlimited American
Intervention. The possibility of sending
several American divisions to the Middle East, raised by the President
early in the month, came up at the White House meeting on 21 June. Setting
down the War Department's reasons for opposing the move, Marshall
declared that such a great change would result in "serious
confusion of command" and would require
the abandonment of BOLERO In favor of operations in the Mediterranean
that, however ambitious, would still be "indecisive." in introducing these familiar
arguments, he stated:

The matter of locating large American ground forces in the Middle
East was discussed Sunday night. The
desirability of the United States taking over control of operations
in that area was mentioned. It is my opinion, and that of the
Operations staff, that we should not undertake such a project.

Before submitting the paper (on 23 June) Marshall added a postscript
that testified to the President's interest in Fellers' dispatches:

The attached was prepared for your consideration
before I had heard your comment this afternoon regarding Fellers' last
message, 1156. I would make this comment. Fellers is a very valuable observer
but his responsibilities are not those of a strategist
and his views are in opposition to mine and those of the entire
Operations Division.89

This answer did not dispose of Colonel Fellers' recommendations, which the President
was to reconsider several weeks later.90
But for the time Marshall carried his point, with the support of
Stimson.91
On 2 July the War Department formally restated and confirmed the policy of a limited
commitment in the Middle East:

Since the Middle East is all area of British strategic
responsibility the U.S. Army forces in that area are limited for the
most part to those engaged in delivery of military supplies to friendly
forces in the area, and to those cooperating with British Middle East
forces by mutual agreement.92

--254--

The War Department followed this cautious policy in handling the problem of command
of Army forces in Egypt, leaving General
Maxwell ,in control and thus reassuring the British Chiefs that the War
Department still regarded the role of the U.S. Army in the Middle East
as that of a co-operative auxiliary. The occasion for asserting this
policy came soon after General Brereton arrived
in Cairo. He objected in the strongest terms to having to deal with the
British through Maxwell, a ground officer junior to him who had as yet
commanded no troops. He inferred the War Department had not intended he
should have to do so.93
A reply went out at once to both officers, over Marshall's signature, stating that the
War Department had so intended and expected them to work in
harmony.94
They at once answered with assurances that they were getting on well
together.95

The closing of the incident did not settle the issue. Marshall
Sounded out British opinion and found that the Middle East Command
preferred to leave things as they were.96
General Arnold objected that it was unsuitable to keep a ground officer in command of
a theater which, from the point of view of American combat operations,
was an air theater.97
But the British preference confirmed General Marshall's disposition to leave things as
they were.98
Maxwell retrained the American commander in the Middle
East.99

The War Department aim was simply to co-operate with the British Chiefs of Staff,
as a condition of their
co-operation in going ahead with the BOLERO plan. A few days after the
close of the June meetings in Washington, General Marshall listed the
various extraordinary measures taken to get air reinforcements, guns,
and tanks to Egypt. He characterized these treasures as
"concessions' made for the sake of agreement on the BOLERO plan, explaining

The visit of Prime Minister Churchill has involved us in a struggle to
keep diversions of our forces to other theaters from interfering with
the BOLERO plan. The Prime Minister felt that it was doubtful if we
could do anything on the European coast in
1942. During these conferences Tobruk fell which made matters worse. The
Prime Minister favored an attack on Africa to case the pressure on the
British in this theater. The result of the conferences, however, was
that we managed to preserve the basic plan for
BOLERO.100

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Consequences of the Battle of Midway

The revival of the GYMNAST coincided
with the development of new American plans in the Pacific, which, like
the modification of American policy in the Middle East, resulted from a
sudden, if not entirely unanticipated, change in the military
situation. The crisis of the latter part of May in the Pacific ended
early in June with the news of a clear American victory. As naval
intelligence had predicted, the main Japanese force struck in the
Central Pacific. On the afternoon of 3 June Army bombers made contact
with the Japanese force west of Midway. In the three days that followed
the Navy won a victory notable in several respects. It was the first
clear American victory of the war; it was decided entirely in the air;
it confirmed the Navy's belief in the tactics of naval air attack
on surface vessels and in the greatness of the advantage possessed by a
fleet supported by long-range land-based reconnaissance;
and finally, it reduced the Japanese superiority in aircraft
carriers.101
A turning point had been reached in the Pacific war.

Central Pacific

The victory at Midway had still another meaning, of special
importance to the Army. The Japanese, after six months' uninterrupted
success, had for the first time failed in an attempt to seize a strategic position.
The Japanese, had they won, could and presumably would have
seized Midway and perhaps one or more of the other outlying islands in
the Hawaiian group. To meet and dispose of the constant threat that they
could have exercised from this advance position,
the Army would have been compelled to send large reinforcements to
Hawaii. The American victory at Midway left the War Department staff
more than ever determined to maintain its position on deployment to the Central Pacific.

General Eisenhower stated the case informally a few days later:

General Handy has been asked to have entire Hawaiian strength restudied. However things
in Pacific are better than when we made our first allocation. So why
disperse further? We may have
made mistakes in our calculations, particularly as to ground forces; but
I am more than ever convinced that our authorized allocations in air are
sufficient--if
kept up to strength!102

Other members of the staff came to the same conclusion as Eisenhower,
even after studying the, less complacent conclusions of two observers
recently returned from the Pacific Maj. Gen. Robert C. Richardson, Jr.
(VII Corps commander), who had gone as the personal representative of
General Marshall, and Col. John L. McKee, a member
of the operations staff. Both these observers
agreed with General Emmons (and Admiral Nimitz) that the War Department had
authorized for Hawaii neither enough ground forces nor enough air
forces.103 The

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staff finally recommended sending two regiments
of the 40th Division, to complete two triangular divisions to garrison
the outlying islands of the Hawaiian group, there defended
by the 27th (square) Division. The staff also recommended sending a few other
badly needed troops--air base security troops (nine battalions),
ordnance troops (part of a battalion), and quartermaster troops (three
service battalions).--over and above previously allotted
strength.104
In mid-July Marshall approved the
recommendations.105
The staff did not recommended, and
Marshall did not then propose. air increase in the number of planes
allocated to tire Central Pacific.

North Pacific

The outcome of operations in the North Pacific was less favorable.
Japanese forces landed unopposed in the western Aleutians, on Kiska and
Attu, opening a new front that American forces were not prepared to defend.
Army air forces in Alaska reacted weakly to this operation and to a
raid on Dutch Harbor which had preceded it, demonstrating--if
there were any need to demonstrate--the ineffectiveness of the
hurriedly reinforced Eleventh Air Force and of the extempore arrangement
for joint Army-Navy action.106
But the Japanese had done only what
the War Department had long conceded they might do, and the staff was
still intent on postponing increases in the strength of Alaskan
defenses.107
The War Department did agree to several readjustments
that could be reconciled with scheduled deployment to other commands.
The War Department directed the reassignment of troops--infantry, antiaircraft, and

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field artillery--from the Western Defense Command (WDC) to Alaska, and
from less exposed positions in Alaska (Sitka and Anchorage) to more
exposed positions (in particular to Nome).108
The War Department also agreed to send to Alaska for the time being (in exchange for a
squadron of P-38's) a group of P-39's (54th Fighter Group) that had been
diverted from BOLERO to the Western Defense Command in the emergency, and
to send for the protection
of Nome a squadron of B-24's equipped with air-to-surface-vessel
radar.109
Beyond these strictly defensive measures the War Department did
not go, although DeWitt promptly submitted a plan for counteraction
in the Aleutians, and the staff began, of necessity, to study the
possibilities.110

South and Southwest Pacific

The specific consequences in the Central and North Pacific of the
Japanese attacks of early June, important as they were, were incidental
to the effect in the South and Southwest Pacific. It was highly probable
that the Japanese would launch their next attack, as Admiral King had at
first expected them to launch their last
one, against the American lines of communication to Australia. But their
attack and defeat off Midway had cut the decisive advantage they had had
in aircraft carriers and, what was more, had lost them the advantage of
having forces deployed and organized to undertake the operation.
Strategically, the Japanese high command still had the initiative.
Japanese forces were still numerically superior and so could still concentrate for
an attack without fear of a concentration
of American forces in another sector. But the American high command had
the option of seizing the initiative, if only in a very limited sense.
American forces could concentrate in the sector in which the Japanese
were expected to attack--Fijis-Australia--at
a calculated risk of exposing other positions to Japanese attack.
American forces, in short, could seize the tactical initiative. By
acting quickly they could, perhaps, upset Japanese plans and thus gain
an initial advantage in the coming struggle to hold open the lines of
communication to Australia.

Admiral Nimitz opened the discussion of operations in the South
Pacific at the end of May with a very modest proposal to

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General MacArthur. He told MacArthur that he had a Marine raider
battalion to lend him (if Admiral King were willing) for landing
operations against Tulagi (Solomons) or
some other Japanese advance base, supported by MacArthur's own naval
forces. MacArthur liked the idea of attacking,
but he did not believe the battalion together with what he had
available would make tip a force strong enough for such an
operation.111
The Army and Navy staffs in Washington took the same view.
It was left up to and MacArthur to go ahead with plans for a raid on
one of the Japanese positions, if they should agree it would be worth trying,
but not to undertake to land and hold a position without previous
approval from Washington.112

The first proposal to come after the Battle
of Midday was MacArthur's. He had plans of his own for much more
ambitious operations in the Britain New Ireland
area, preparatory to launching an attack on
Rabaul. He urged them at once on the War Department. To carry them out
he asked for an amphibious division and a naval task force including
two carriers. With that force he would
undertake to recapture "that important area, forcing the enemy back
700 miles to his base at Truk." thus obtaining "manifold
strategic advantages both defensive and offensive," which could be
further exploited at once.113

The War Department staff, which had been awaiting this proposal, had
already gone to work to calculate what forces MacArthur
would need to open such an offensive and how shipping schedules could be arranged
to get them to him.114
n receiving MacArthur's proposals, the staff at once opened discussions with the
Navy.115
Remarkably enough, in view of the long effort of the: War Department to
restrict Army deployment and operations in the Pacific, the operations staff expressed
entire agreement with the bold idea of
advancing by way of eastern New Guinea and New Britain
to Rabaul, the forward operating base of the Japanese forces in the
South Pacific. To attack Rabaul would be to attack the vital point on
the lines of communication between Truk, the strategic assembly point
some 700 miles to the north of Rabaul, and the Japanese forward
positions in the Solomons. If the attack succeeded, the Japanese position in the
Solomons "would almost fall of its own weight."116

Within it few days Marshall presented the War Department plan to
Admiral King. It required a Marine division for the assault and three
Army divisions from Australia to follow up. The Army air component
would include, besides planes then available to MacArthur, the B-17's held in Hawaii
and the additional sixteen sent there from the west coast in late
May. To provide fighter cover for the landings, which

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would be out of range of American land based pursuit planes,
the Navy would have to furnish three carriers (and
escort for them), in addition to the naval forces of MacArthur and
whatever naval assistance the British might provide. Marshall, after
summarizing the plan, dwelt on the point that the operation, in order to
succeed, must be mounted as soon as possible--some time early in July--and
that they must reach a decision at once. He asked Admiral King to meet
him to talk over the proposed operations.117

General Marshall intimated to MacArthur
that he expected complications, and MacArthur assured him that he well
understood "the extreme delicacy of your position and the complex difficulties
that face you there."118
In making his proposal, Marshall had put himself in a position vis-á-vis Admiral
King rather like his position vis-á-vis the British two months before.
The operation he proposed would depend very heavily on Navy forces,
especially at the outset, and might prove very costly to them. much as
SLEDGEHAMMER would depend on--and might prove very costly to British forces.

On the "working level" the Army and Navy staffs quickly came
to substantial agreement, but to no purpose, since Rear Adm. Charles M.
Cooke, Jr. (Assistant Chief of Staff' to Commander in Chief U.S.
Fleet), speaking for Admiral King, objected,
first, to risking carriers in the narrow sea between New Guinea and the
Solomons, where they would be exposed to attacks from Japanese
land-based aircraft without protection from
American land-based aircraft, and second, to putting the operation under
MacArthur.119
About two weeks passed while the staffs did what they could. As the Army
operations representative complained to his
chief: "Both their and our detailed plans become more and more difficult
of rapid accomplishment the longer the bickering in high places
continues."120

Finally, Admiral King, speaking for himself,
wrote to Marshall explaining his own plan (along the lines of RAINBOW 2).
It was in essence a plan he had long since had in mind, and it had no
doubt been in his mind--and in Marshall's--during the debates
over deployment and command in the Pacific.121
As he had explained to the President early in March, he looked forward
to striking in the South Pacific as soon as American garrisons had made
reasonably secure the "strong points" along the lines of
communication. These strong points being secured, the Navy would not
only cover the vulnerable American lines of communication
to Australia but also--"given the naval forces, air units, and amphibious troops"

--260--

could take the initiative, attacking the weakest Japanese position:

. . . we can drive northwest from the New Hebrides into the Solomons
and the Bismarck [sic] Archipelago after the same fashion of step-by-step advances that
the Japanese used in the South China Sea. Such a line of operations
will be offensive rather than passive and will draw Japanese forces there
to oppose it, thus relieving pressure
elsewhere. . . .122

Admiral King, in proposing this course of action to General Marshall
in June, set the final aim of seizing Rabaul and occupying eastern New
Guinea. Since General MacArthur had meanwhile made explicit provision for
preliminary landings in the Solomons as well as in New Guinea to seize airfields
and thus provide protection for naval surface forces, the operations
proposed by King and MacArthur were very, similar in
scope.123
But King's idea of the operation was nonetheless quite different from MacArthur's,
as Admiral Cooke's objections had already indicated. Admiral King held
that these operations should be under naval command throughout, not (as the working planners
had agreed) in the assault stage only. Admiral Nimitz would retain
control until it came time to occupy the islands on a permanent basis,
at which time MacArthur would acquire
jurisdiction.124

General Marshall protested, of course, that MacArthur should command
the entire operation, chiefly on the
grounds that the operation lay "almost entirely in the Southwest Pacific area"
and that it was "designed to add to
the security of that area."125

But Admiral King had the much stronger argument that Admiral Nimitz
should control the commitment or withdrawal
of naval forces in the light of the whole naval situation
in the Pacific. King proposed that the Navy should logically retain
control of primarily naval and amphibious
operations such as these, by the same reasoning that had led him to
agree to Army exercise of unity of command over operations against
Germany, which would be mainly on and over land. He stated,
provocatively, that he thought the operation important enough to be
launched "even if no support of Army forces in the Southwest
Pacific area is made available."126

General Marshall promptly objected to the inference that Army support
would be contingent on command: "Regardless of the final decision
as to command, every available support must be given to this operation,
or any operation against the enemy." He again requested Admiral
King to talk over the problem with him at once.127
Marshall had very
good reason to disavow any intention of allowing strategic commitments
to be determined by bargaining over command. King, in stating his ideas
about command for this operation, had advanced
a theory more or less applicable to operations in the Pacific for a long
time to come--that Marshall should be willing to accept Navy command of
primarily naval and amphibious warfare. This solution at least implied a
sharp division of labor between

--261--

the Army and Navy in the determination
of plans and control of operations, with the JCS supporting Army views
and control of operations against Germany and Navy views and control
over operations against Japan.

MacArthur quickly seized on the point, and made known his displeasure.
After learning that King had directed Nimitz to go ahead on the basis of
the Navy proposal, MacArthur declared:

It is quite evident in reviewing the whole situation that Navy
contemplates assuming, general command control of all operations in
the Pacific theater, the role of the Army being subsidiary and
consisting largely of placing its forces at the disposal and under the
command of Navy or Marine officers. . . .
I shall take no steps or action with reference to any components of my
Command except under your direct orders.128

MacArthur, in his next message hastened to remove any possible
misapprehension that he meant to offer "anything short of the
fullest cooperation" once it should have been decided to go through
with an operation.129
But King apparently saw that a solution, to be
acceptable, should not appear to slight MacArthur. He offered a way out.
He proposed to Marshall that Vice Adm. Robert L. Ghormley, the newly
appointed Navy commander in the South Pacific, should control operations
against Tulagi, and that Mac Arthur should thereafter assume
control of operations toward Rabaul.130
As MacArthur at once pointed out, it would be hard thus to transfer command between phases of the
operation. Marshall recognized the force of the objection, but concluded
that the proposed arrangement offered the only basis on which the Army
and Navy could "successfully and immediately
go ahead with this operation."131
He therefore accepted the
proposal and drafted a joint directive, providing for an operation in
three phases: (1) to take the Santa Cruz Islands, Tulagi, and adjacent
positions; (2) to take Lae, Salamaua, and the northeast coast of New
Guinea; and (3) to capture Rabaul and adjacent positions in the New
Britain-New Ireland area. The first phase (Task One) was to be under the
control of Admiral Nimitz. MacArthur would be in charge of the second
and third phases (Tasks Two and Three).132

Admiral King did not especially like the solution. He had since made
and still preferred an alternative proposal
to let Admiral Ghormley execute the operation directly under the
JCS.133
General Marshall had been and remained opposed to this
proposal, which was likely to involve the JCS too deeply in the conduct
of overseas operations to promise well either for the operations
themselves or for the performance by the JCS of their own proper
functions.134
So Admiral King, "in order to make progress in the
direction in which we are agreed that we should go," consented to
plan for an operation in three phases, with
command passing between the first and second phases. He proposed a
target date of 1 August for

--262--

initiating the first phase, and that arrangements
for the second and third phases be made not later than
20 July.135
General Marshall sent to General MacArthur a hopeful yet anxious comment
on the result:

I feel that a workable plan has been set up and a unity of command
established without previous precedent for an offensive operation. I
wish you to make every conceivable effort to promote a complete accord
throughout this affair. There will be difficulties and irritations
inevitably but the end in view demands a determination to suppress these
manifestations.136

In anticipation of these arrangements, the War Department had
meanwhile been reexamining the problem of
jurisdiction over Army forces in the South Pacific. This problem had
been a point of contention in Washington ever since January, when the
first Army garrisons were sent. On 19 January the War Department staff
had drafted a letter to be sent to General Emmons,
the Army commander in Hawaii, making him responsible, under the Commander
in Chief, Pacific Fleet, Admiral , for the defense of New Caledonia and
Borabora, as well as Christmas and Canton islands.137
But the staff had dropped the proposal since Admiral King objected to
it.138
As a result, General Emmons' mission was not
extended to include any broadly defined responsibility for Army forces
along the line Hawaii-Australia.139
The want of joint arrangements for unity of command beyond the defense of
the Hawaiian Islands group was a serious defect, as both the War and Navy Departments
acknowledged.140
In mid-February the Navy had raised several questions relating to this problem, among them
the question of General Emmons' point of view "due to his limited
mission," and of Admiral Nimitz' authority to move Army forces beyond the Hawaiian
Coastal Frontier.141
These questions had come up in connection with
the diversion of the squadron of B-17's from Hawaii to the South Pacific
to operate in connection with the ANZAC Task Force.142
They had remained pertinent and important questions
throughout the spring, as a result of the War Department's refusal to
provide a separate bomber force for the South Pacific. The most obvious solution

--263--

was to establish Army command channels in the Pacific parallel to the
Navy command channels, so that General Emmons' views on the strategic
disposition of the bombers stationed in Hawaii would be based on the
same broad calculation of risks as those that Admiral Nimitz had to make
in considering the disposition of the Pacific Fleet. Early in April,
after the establishment of the Pacific
Ocean Area, the Navy Department had directed Admiral Nimitz to name a
flag officer to take command in the South
Pacific.143
To correspond with this
command, which was given to Admiral Ghormley, General Emmons in May had
proposed that an Army officer be appointed as his deputy to command Army
forces in the South Pacific.144
The War Department staff, which had first thought of setting up a separate Army
command in the area under General Patch, had dropped that idea in favor
of having a single Army command in the Pacific,
with a deputy in the South Pacific--an arrangement substantially in accord with
Emmons proposal.145
But finally, in June, shortly before Admiral Ghormley assumed command in the
South Pacific, the War Department staff
arrived at a solution less symmetrical, but more in keeping with the
actual situation in the Pacific.

Shortly after the Battle of Midway, General
Eisenhower and Maj. Gen. Millard F. Harmon, Chief of Air Staff,
discussed the problem and the related problem of bomber
operations in the Pacific. As a result of these discussions the War
Department proposed that an Army commander be appointed for all Army forces placed
under Admiral Ghormley, and that a Pacific mobile air force be set aside
in Hawaii, to be used anywhere in the
Pacific, at General Marshall's discretion.146

With this proposal the War Department in effect conceded that naval
strategy should control operations in the South Pacific. Even this
concession was not enough. Admiral King
took exception on two counts. He did not want the proposed Army commander's
jurisdiction under Admiral Ghormley to extend to the operations of Army
forces, as the War Department had proposed; and he wanted two mobile air
forces set up-in Australia and Hawaii rather than the one in Hawaii
proposed by the War Department. Marshall accepted
the changes.147
General Harmon, who was given the new command as Commanding
General, U.S. Army Forces in the South Pacific Area (CG USAFISPA, or in
Navy form, COMGENSOPAC), received his
formal letter of instructions on 7 July.148
Like the other officers--Emmons, Stilwell, and Eisenhower--that General

--264--

Marshall had sent out from Washington since Pearl Harbor to take
command of Army Forces in strategically critical theaters,
Harmon had a good idea how the War Department intended to treat problems
in his theater--knowledge that he was expected to keep in mind.

Up to this point no one appears to have raised the question of sending
additional Army forces into the South Pacific, last raised by King at
the end of May.149
The agreement just reached had given to Admiral
King an implied claim on the War Department for help in the South
Pacific, and to General MacArthur an implied assurance
of War Department support, albeit deferred, in the Southwest Pacific.
But King and MacArthur had still to state their expectations, and
General Marshall to state his intentions, with regard to the question of
Army forces for the planned three-part offensive.

The issuance of the new directive at once opened the question.
MacArthur and Ghormley, after conferring on 8 July, recommended
that Task One (Santa Cruz and Tulagi) be postponed until means were
available in the Pacific to follow up immediately
with Tasks Two and Three (eastern New Guinea and
Rabaul).150
King, in commenting on their recommendation, insisted
on going ahead in any case with Task One and pointed out that MacArthur
had suddenly grown more conservative:

I take note that about three weeks ago MacArthur stated that, if he
could be furnished amphibious forces and
two carriers, he could push right through to RABAUL. Confronted with the
concrete aspects of the task, he now feels that he not only cannot
undertake this extended operation but not even the TULAGI
operation.151

The point of King's observation was not lost on the War Department,
which would thus face once again, in a new context, with the familiar
demand for additional commitments to the Pacific, even though Army
forces present in the Pacific or en route (estimated by the planners to
be 252,000) already exceeded the total strength that the War Department
had undertaken to have in the Pacific by
the end of the year (237,000).152

How far the War Department would go to meet these demands would depend
partly on the fortunes of war in the South Pacific, in the Libyan
Desert, on the Eastern Front in Europe, and on the high seas, where
Allied shipping losses continued to be. heavy. It would also depend
partly on the President's estimate of the
situation and, finally, on his decision whether to go ahead gathering
Army forces in the British Isles. For the time being, until he had made
his decision. there was small chance that
the War Department would make many concessions to Admiral King and the
Pacific commands.

General Marshall had expressed the same idea at the morning conference
with Molotov on 30 May. (op., cit, p. 564.) Compare with the President's
statement of 6 May to Hopkins, the Secretaries of War and Navy, and the
JCS, quoted above,
pp. 221-22.

6.
Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 582 83.
Sherwood quotes the account Mountbatten sent to the President summarizing
the report he had made to the Prime Minister of the conversation.

On 10 June Mountbatten gave an account of this conversation to the CCS.
The conversation, fie noted, had lasted five hours.
The minutes contain only very general statements about it.
Min, 11th mtg CCS, 10 Jun 42.)
On 19 June the British Chiefs of Staff summarized for the American Chiefs of Staff
the points the President had made. (Min 27th mtg CGS, 19 Jun 42.)

7.
Stf study, title: Occupation of NW Af by U.S. Forces, incl with
memo, CofS for President, 16,Jun 42, sub: GYMNAST Opn.
GYMNAST and SUPER-GYMNAST
Development File, OPD Regd Docs.
The study is based on a draft filed in Item 53, Exec 10.

The memorandum itself bears no indication
of its having been sent to the President, but it is doubtless the
paper that Marshall took with him to the White- House on the following
day, spoken of by Stimson in his diary. "Marshall had a paper already
prepared against it [GYMNAST] for he had a premonition of what was
corning." (Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, p. 419.)
Another reference, undoubtedly to the same memorandum, indicates that it must have
been prepared in a great hurry to be taken to the meeting at the White
House. (See memo, OPD for CofS, 17 Jun 42, Book 5, Exec 8.)
For the plans (SUPER-GYMNAST), See
Ch. VIII, above.

9.
Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, pp. 419 23. The account
contains a quotation, from the Secretary's diary for 17 June, concerning
the meeting of that day at the White House, and the full text of the
Secretary's memorandum to the President, dated 19 June, which had
"the unanimous endorsement of General Marshall and his staff."

10.
See min, 27th mtg CCS, 19 Jun 42. The Chief of the Imperial
General Staff, General Sir .Alan Brooke, "explained that the Prime
Minister's visit was the outcome of conversations with Admiral
Mountbatten who had given an account of his talks with the
President." Brooke then listed the problems
which, according to Mountbatten 's report, the President had been
considering. The list corresponds with the account of Mountbatten's conversation with
the President, quoted in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 582-83.

20.
Memo, Prime Minister for President, 20 Jun 42, Book 5, Exec 8.
The memorandum, although bearing the
date 20 June, appears to have been given to the President the day before.
See memorandum, cited n. 21 (1) by which Hopkins, through Captain McCrea,
forwarded it to Marshall and King.

The policy on SLEDGEHAMMER
that the Prime Minister at this time expounded to the President had been formally
adopted on 11 June. (See below,
pp. 266-67.)

21.
Memo, McCrea for Marshall and King, 20 Jun 42, no sub, the text
of which contains memo, Hopkins for McCrea, 20 Jun 42, no sub, ABC 381
Pacific Bases (1-22-42), 2. The original draft by the President and
Hopkins is reproduced in facsimile in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 586-87.

On 23 June Marshall sent a memorandum to the President based on the
first of these drafts. Memo, CofS for President, 23 Jun 42, no sub, OPD 381 Gen, 62.

23.
Draft memo, cited n. 22 (1). This begins: "My comments on the
Prime Minister's memorandum of June 20th to the President follow."
A penciled note states that Hull prepared the draft and that a copy went
to Arnold. On Marshall's initiative, the War Department staff had already been
investigating possible reductions in
transport vehicles for the assault divisions. See (1) min, 18th mtg JCS, 4 Jun 42;
(2) memo, CofS for Eisenhower, 4 Jun 42, no sub,
(3) memo, OPD for CofS, 19 Jun 42, sub: Reduction of Transport and Heavy
Equip in BOLERO Assault Divs, and
(4) memo, OPD for SOS, 19 Jun 42, no sub, last three in Item 4, Exec 1.

26.
For accounts of this meeting, see: (1) Stimson and Bundy, On
Active Service, pp. 423-24 (the account of the Secretary, who was not
present, was based on reports from Hopkins and Marshall); and
(2) Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 591-92.

30.
Memo cited n. 27. They had apparently brought the difference up
with Brooke, for they passed on his suggestion that they "wait
until tomorrow before discussing the matter."

31.
CCS 83/1, 24 Jun 42. The original version by General Ismay was
also modified to provide for study of operations both against the
Iberian Peninsula and against northern
Norway. (For later considerations of these alternatives, see below, Chs.
XII and
XIV.)

The Prime Minister, whose personal project it was, expected the
invasion of Norway to be an affair mainly for British forces. But partly
in response to his eagerness to invade Norway, the War Department
organized a special regimental combat force of selected U.S. and
Canadian volunteers, the First Special Service Force, under Lt. Col.
Robert T. Frederick. The project (PLOUGH) provided for training the
force to operate in snow, using a special-purpose tracked vehicle in the
development of which the Prime Minister had taken an active interest.
The existence of this elite unit turned out to be something of an
embarrassment. The Prime Minister did not readily give up the Norway
venture, but it was not well regarded by his own staff; it was out of
keeping with American views on operations against Germany; and its
specific value to him became relatively less as operations in North
Africa lessened his need for a great military success, and development
of other routes to the Soviet Union reduced the importance of the
protection of the northern route, the principal military purpose of
JUPITER. (See below, Ch. XIV,
p. 310.)
The PLOUGH Force was finally
committed to the Kiska operation (15-19 August 1943) and was sent to
Italy in November 1943 to participate in the Italian campaign. (See
especially, Lt. Col. Robert D. Burhans, The First Special Service Force
(Washington, Infantry Journal Press, 1947).)

32.
Churchill received the news of the fall of Tobruk at the White
House while on his second visit to Washington. For his reaction to this
heavy blow, see Hinge of Fate, p. 383.

39.
See memo, AAF for CofS, 16 May 42, sub: Modified Plan for HALPRO,
WDCSA, HALPRO (SS), for a description of the project as of this time.
The British had earlier worked out plans for the same enterprise. The
U.S. military attaché in Cairo, Col. Bonner F. Fellers, reporting the
plans, had recommended that the United States should furnish the planes.
See (1) msg, Fellers to G-2, 6 Apr 42, CM-IN 1711 (4/ 7/ 42) (R);
(2) msg, Fellers to G-2, 24 Apr 42, CM-IN 6969 (4/26/42) (R); and
(3) msg, Fellers to G-2, 1 May 42, CM-IN 1043 (5/4/42) (R).

Air War Plans had also been in favor of assigning
planes for the purpose, whereas the Strategy Section in OPD had objected to it,
"due to other commitments."
(Memo, Col Nevins for Chief, S&P Croup, 9 May 42, sub:
Recommendation for Execution of War Plan
BLACK and Bombing of Ploesti, OPD 381 Africa 5.

40.
Four of the planes were forced down in Turkey,
where the crews were interned. The others landed at various places in Syria and Iraq.
(See OPD Daily Sums for 13-17 Jun 42, Current Gp File, DRB AGO.)

47.
See (1) Ch. VI, above, and
(2) memo for red, sub: Activation of 23d Pursuit Gp, OPD 320.2 CTO, 31,
for the history of the flight.

48.
The Chinese Government learned of the decision,
as then understood by OPD, from Stilwell, who had received an
information copy (CM-OUT 6083) of msg (originator OPD), Marshall to
Brereton, 24 Jun 42, CM-OUT 6075 (R). For the Generalissimo's protest,
see msg, Stilwell to Marshall, 26 Jun 42, CM-IN 8586 (R).

49.
Msg, President (through Stilwell) to Generalissimo,
27 Jun 42, CM-OUT 7014 (R). Successive drafts, concluding with the memo
for WDCMC and with notes of each action taken, are filed in Item 19a, Exec 10.

General Arnold in mid-July asked the President to release the A-29's
arriving at Khartoum, but the President refused, saying he would make a
decision when all the planes were assembled there.
(Msg, Lt Gen Joseph T. McNarney to Gen Marshall, 18 Jul 42, CM-OUT 4970.)
For further indication of the President's determination,
see remarks by Assistant Secretaries Lovett and McCloy and General
Arnold. (Notes on War Council, 20 Jul 42, SW Confs, Vol II, WDCSA.1

51.
For a brief account of the "three demands," in
connection with American planning later in the summer, see below,
Ch. XIV.
A full account is to be found in Romanus and Sunderland,
Stilwell's Mission to China,Chs. V and
VII.

57.
Memo, CofS for Dill, 25 Jun 42, no sub, OPD 452.1, 51. This action
superseded the action that Colonel Wedemeyer was taking through the JPS
and the British planners with the same end in view. (See informal memo,
A.C.W. [Wedemeyer] for Handy, 25 Jun 42, OPD 452.1, 51.)

For the schedules drawn up at this meeting, see annexes to min, 29th
mtg CCS, 25 Jun 42, circulated as CCS 84, title: U.S. Reinforcements for Middle East.

65.
See paper, unsigned, n.d., no title, Tab Misc, Book 6, Exec 8,
for the expected composition of a task force built around the 2d
Armored Division. This paper bears initial H [Gen Handy] in upper
right-hand corner.

For the selection of General Patton to command the American task force for Egypt, see:
(1) memo for rcd, 23 Jun 42, sub: U.S. Army Comd in Midd1e Fast, OPD 384 Africa, 1, and
(2) memo for rcd, Handy, 25 Jun 42, OPD 381 Middle East, 7.
This notes only that Patton was to be released and to see the Chief of Staff before leaving.
The decision had already been made not to send a task force.
Army planners concluded that it would take as much as five months from
the time an American armored division was alerted until the time it
actually reached the fighting front in the Middle East. This finding in
itself raised serious doubts of the practicability of the project.
(See Tab A to draft memo [OPD for CofS, probably written 22-23 Jun 42],
sub: Mvmt of One U.S. Armored Div to Middle East, Item 56, Exec 10,
and ltr, Lt Col William H. Baurner, Jr., for Gen Ward, OCMH, 3 May 51, OCMH Files.)

66.
For discussion of the project in July and August, see below,
Ch. XII.

The Middle East Command declined the offer of cadres to train an
armored division in the United Kingdom in the use of American equipment,
but otherwise welcomed the proposal. (See mtg of Gen Council, 7 Jul 42,
OPD 334.8 Gen Council, 9, and pers ltr, Dill to Marshall, 27 Jun 42,
WDCSA Middle East (S).)

69.
The strength of heavy bombers in the Middle East from 25 June
through 16 July was between one and two squadrons. By the end of July,
with reinforcements beginning to
arrive from the United States, it had reached three squadrons-besides five
medium bombers. (OPD Weekly Status Maps, AG 061 14 Sep 45).)

70.
OPD Daily Sums, 7-8, 16-17, 17-18 Jul 42, Current Gp File, DRB AGO.
In August the 33d Pursuit Group was also ordered
to be moved to Cairo. (OPD Daily Sum, 18-19 Aug 42, Current Gp File, DRB AGO.)
This order was soon countermanded, and the 79th Fighter Group
substituted. (Msg (originator OPD), Marshall to Maxwell, 21 Aug 42,
CM-OUT 7145 (8/23/42) (R) and OPD 381 Africa, 26, and other cases in
that file.) The needs of the North African campaign (TORCH) required
the change. (For the discussions, see
Ch. XIV, below.)

80.
Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 599.
(1) Brereton, with Maxwell's concurrence, had recommended on 29 June
the diversion of the entire consignment, of which twenty planes were
then reported operational. (Msg, Brereton to Marshall and Arnold, 29 Jun 42, CM-IN 9738 (R).)
(2) The War Department had replied that "in view of military situation as a
whole," it was "not considered advisable" to ask for the release of the planes.
Msg (originator OPD), Marshall to Maxwell, 30 Jun 42, CM-OUT 7832(R).)
The President and Stalin acted very promptly on Churchill's hesitant
request (of 4 July), and the War Department notified Basra of the
release of the planes on 7 July. (Msg (originator AAF), Marshall
to AMSIR, 7 Jul 42, CM-OUT 1958 (7/8/42) (R).)

99.
The idea that Maxwell would in time be given command of SOS USAFIME,
with another officer taking over command of USAFIME, remained under consideration.
(See for example, note for rcd, OPD 384 Middle East, 8.) This eventually happened
in the fall (4 November 1942), when Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews became CG USAFIME.

100.
(1) Notes on War Council, 29 Jun 42, SW Confs, Vol II, WDCSA.
(2) Cf. Ibid., 22 Jun 42. Marshall said, "We have had a series of
conferences with the British including the Prime Minister . . .. The
main issue has been with regard to plans for BOLERO and diversion from
this project. The fall of Tobruk has made the situation more
complicated. Our main consideration has been to keep political
considerations and British face-saving diversions from interfering with
strategy and thus disrupting the BOLERO plan."

101.
(1) Samuel Eliot Morison, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine
Actions: May 1942-August 1942 (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1949), p. 158.
(2) Craven and Cate, AAF I,pp. 457-61.
The AAF units that took part in the Battle of Midway claimed credit
for having sunk or damaged several Japanese vessels during the
engagement. These claims were disputed at the time and have since been
discredited, but they did influence Army views on operations in the Pacific.

105.
OPD's recommendations were approved by General Marshall at a
conference with General Handy and Colonel McKee on 13 July. For this
conference, see memorandum for record filed with the directive that
followed (metro, OPD for.AGF and SOS, 16 Jul 42, sub: Reinforcements
for Hawaii, OPD 370.5 Hawaii, 18).
For staff action immediately thereafter on the defense of Hawaii,
see in particular: (1) OPD 320.2 Hawaii, 121, 126, 145:
(2) OPD 320.2 PTO, 6; and
(3) OPD 370.5 Hawaii, 18, 40.

120.
Memo cited n. 119 (1). It should be noted that from 21 to 25
June, the JCS were preoccupied with a critical situation in the Middle
East and the reconsideration of strategy for 1942. (See section on
"Crisis in Egypt," pp. 250-55, above.)

121.
For an early anticipation of such a proposal, see memo, CofS for
COMINCH, 24 Feb 42, sub: Estab of U.S. Garrisons in Efate . . ., Tab
Misc, Book 4, Exec 8. This memo is quoted and discussed
in Ch. VII, above.

123.
See msg, MacArthur to Marshall, 24 Jun 42, CM-IN 7976.
MacArthur declared that in his message of 8 June (cited n. 113) he had
omitted purposely the step-by-step explanation of what he proposed to
do, and that the Navy had misconceived his
plan for the operations in the New Britain-New Ireland region.

138.
Informal memo, EJK [King] for ACofS WPD, 19,Jan 42, WPD 3718-14.
King objected that "this set-up" was "not consonant with (a) the projected creation of
the ANZAC area, (b) the facts of the case in connection with the U.S. Army General
comdg U.S. troops, etc. in Australia."

140.
For the arrangements made in May for joint action in the
defense of the Hawaiian Islands group, under a state of "fleet
opposed invasion," by which Emmons was made the "task force
Commander Hawaiian Defense Sector," see:
(1) msg, COMINCH to CINCPAC, 14 May 42, OPD 384 Hawaii 1; and
(2) ltr, Gen Richardson to CofS, 1 Jun 42, Rpt 2, copy under Tab Misc, Book 5, Exec 8.

141.
Navy paper, title: Agenda for Evening of Monday 16 Feb, WPD 4449-8.
The War Department staff advised General Marshall on
the first question that the limitation of Emmons' assigned mission
doubtless did make him "unwilling to commit his long-range striking
aircraft to any offensive mission planned by the CinCPac which might
contribute only indirectly to the defense of Hawaii." On the other
question, the staff expressed doubt that Nimitz had authority to move
Army units outside the Hawaiian Coastal Frontier. (See WPD study, sub;
Notes for CofS, WPD 4449-8. For details of the transaction, see also
other papers filed with the above.)